Craft Research: Joining Emotion and Knowledge

This paper considers how craft and research can join in the enterprise of craft research, reflected in the new journal of Craft Research. The rationale is that craft research – i.e. research into, for and through craft practice – is still relatively new, and that craft is traditionally associated with the creation of artefacts as a source of experience and emotion while research is devoted to the production of knowledge. The paper sets out the context of craft as a discipline and activity, which is bound to the sensibilities of material and material understanding, making and haptic perception as well as to the production of emotional values. It introduces the need for creative research in the crafts, which contrasts with the current strictures of research, and proposes experiential knowledge as the unifying conceptual underpinning of both. The outcome and contribution of the paper is a better understanding of the relationship between craft and research, which will help makers overcome the opposing perceptions of craft and research. It explains the potential and value of research for the development of craft, both as practice and as discipline, and thus for advancing craft as a discipline that is viable and relevant for the future